Better reception for Radio i.e. Radio 4 etc...

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Few things can drive sailors as mad as radio reception going off when the boat swings or when you get up and move about.

I can live with AM during the day but love FM at night. I have tried fastening extra lengths of wire to the radio's aerial with little success.

Please do not ask me to buy a decent radio. In true East Coast fashion I am looking for enjoyment without expense, I have ruined too many being bounced about and with general poor care.

Many Thanks for any help that may be forthcoming.
 

Twister_Ken

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We have a cheap car radio, with aerial led underdeck to a shroud base. It was already installed when I bought the boat so no idea about the niceties, but it seems to work very well on FM. Not so good on AM. Doubles up as a cassete player. Could be a car radio is best bet because they are designed to be used in a mobile situation. And being bolted in they don't fall over. Should be able to get one down your local rub-a-dub for about a tenner, but it won't have an instruction manual!
 

Juggler7823

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Vic,
The simplest solution for an ordinary aerial for a domestic or car radio is to get one of the Shakespear aerial splitters. This plugs into your standard VHF aerial. Mine gives excellent AM and FM reception and does not affect the VHF radio at all.

Roy
 

vyv_cox

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Roy,

Glad to hear this. In Holland we can receive Radio 4 and 5-live but we get interference from various sources below decks. I have been thinking of buying one of these. Is AM reception of distant stations improved over, say, a car aerial below deck?

Thanks

Vyv
 

Juggler7823

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VyV, I have to go back a few boats to remember the problems when I used to use a car aerial for AM. I usually got a reasonable signal but lots of interference at various times including a loud whistling sound which changed frequency. This usually happened on summer evenings.

Now I have no problems at all for FM and AM.

Roy
 

robp

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I've not seen these. Do they protect the domestic receiver from the RF power transmitted by the VHF?
 

Boatman

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Vyv

I have over the years used splitters for various radios (I am a Ham) they are always a comprimise but can work very well. A number of companies make splitters as described above and all should perform well (or at least better than what has been described so far). However the only real solution for the best reception is to make or buy an antenna which is mached to the frequency range that you are listening to. I forget the formula for the calculation but can look it up if any one is interested. To make one attaching a bit of wire to the existing twig isn't going to work in fact may make matters even worse. Ever wondered why car, home, portable aerials are all about the same length.
 

boomer

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Noting your reservations, experience has taught me that the only truely satisfactory answer is to invest in a quality radio. It all comes down to the quality of the tuner and in this respect you can forget the average car radio. But a proper job needn't cost a fortune. Try one of the small Roberts at under 30 quid. They are brilliant on FM all around the UK and mine gets Radio 4 crystal clear on Long Wave in Holland and in France.
 

vyv_cox

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My fitted radio/CD is very high quality - it's the signal that's the problem. Using a car aerial below decks introduces many sources of interference. In my case it seems to be the control unit for the solar panel that supplies a not-quite-smooth voltage into the charging circuit, but instruments and GPS add their own buzzes and whistles. I never yet found a car aerial that has sufficiently high performance materials to resist seawater for more than about a season. So the splitter on the VHF antenna sounds the ideal solution.

I wouldn't really put a 30 quid Roberts radio into the "quality" category. They may be adequate for FM and LW, which is a very strong signal. I was listening to Radio 4 on a car radio in a boat in Mallorca last weekend, but only at anchor. No chance with instruments on.
 

billmacfarlane

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I don't know what make you've got but I fitted a Blaupunkt car radio and fitted the aerial supplied with it. I fitted the aerial below decks next to the radio and have not had a problem with either FM in the UK or LW while in France.
 

vyv_cox

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I have a Blaupunkt in the forecabin and a Sony in the saloon, both with aerials below. On the water, at sea, reception is fine. In the berth, inland, surrounded by buildings and other boats, reception can be very poor, particularly at night. Five Live on 909 is impossible anywhere due to interference from another station. On 693 we suffer from internal interference sometimes, but this can be reduced by putting the aerial(s) elsewhere in the boat. We also suffer from interference from another station that I always assumed to be a taxi company, but we got the same thing in central France on a portable radio a few weeks ago, so it probably isn't. LW is a lottery, occasionally not a blemish, other times unuseable. It does seem that getting an external antenna as high as possible may be the best answer.
 

steve

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A friend of mine with a Sony portable had the antenna hooked up to the positive side of the boat's electrical system. He'd just come back from a circumnavigation and had had good reception everywhere. I haven't tried it yet myself.
 
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